Editing Sound film (section)

== Crucial innovations ==
A number of technological developments contributed to making sound cinema commercially viable by the late 1920s. Two involved contrasting approaches to synchronized sound reproduction, or playback:

=== Advanced sound-on-film ===
In 1919, American inventor [[Lee De Forest]] was awarded several patents that would lead to the first [[optical sound]]-on-film technology with commercial application. In De Forest's system, the sound track was photographically recorded onto the side of the strip of motion picture film to create a composite, or "married", print. If proper synchronization of sound and picture was achieved in recording, it could be absolutely counted on in playback. Over the next four years, he improved his system with the help of equipment and patents licensed from another American inventor in the field, [[Theodore Case]].<ref>Sponable (1947), part 2.</ref>

At the [[University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign|University of Illinois]], Polish-born research engineer [[Joseph Tykociński-Tykociner]] was working independently on a similar process. On June 9, 1922, he gave the first reported U.S. demonstration of a sound-on-film motion picture to members of the [[American Institute of Electrical Engineers]].<ref>Crafton (1997), pp. 51–52; Moone (2004); Łotysz (2006). Crafton and Łotysz describe the demonstration as taking place at an AIEE conference. Moone, writing for the journal of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign's Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, says the audience was "members of the Urbana chapter of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers."</ref> As with Lauste and Tigerstedt, Tykociner's system would never be taken advantage of commercially; however, De Forest's soon would.

[[File:Phonofilm1.jpg|thumb|right|alt=All-text advertisement from the Strand Theater, giving dates, times, and performers' names. At the top, a tagline reads, "$10,000 reward paid to any person who finds a phonograph or similar device used in the phonofilms." The accompanying promotional text describes the slate of sound pictures as "the sensation of the century&nbsp;... Amazing! Astounding! Unbelievable".|Newspaper ad for a 1925 presentation of Phonofilm shorts, touting their technological distinction: no phonograph.]]
On April 15, 1923, at the New York City's Rivoli Theater, the first commercial screening of motion pictures with sound-on-film took place. This would become the future standard. It consisted of a set of short films varying in length and featuring some of the most popular stars of the 1920s (including [[Eddie Cantor]], [[Harry Richman]], [[Sophie Tucker]], and [[George Jessel (actor)|George Jessel]] among others) doing stage performances such as [[vaudeville]]s, musical acts, and speeches which accompanied the screening of the silent feature film ''Bella Donna''.<ref>{{cite book|last=MacDonald|first=Laurence E.|date=1998|title=The Invisible Art of Film Music: A Comprehensive History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e0NYYHWtz6sC&q=lee+de+forest+bella+donna&pg=PA5|location=Lanham, MD|publisher=Ardsley House|page=5|isbn=978-1-880157-56-5}}</ref> All of them were presented under the banner of [[Phonofilm|De Forest Phonofilms]].<ref>Gomery (2005), p. 30; Eyman (1997), p. 49.</ref> The set included the 11-minute short film ''From far Seville'' starring [[Concha Piquer]]. In 2010, a copy of the tape was found in the [[Library of Congress|U.S. Library of Congress]], where it is currently preserved.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.msn.com/es-es/noticias/virales/12-mentiras-de-la-historia-que-nos-tragamos-sin-rechistar-4/ar-BBTeaLx?li=BBpmbhJ&ocid=DELLDHP#page=8|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190207015725/https://www.msn.com/es-es/noticias/virales/12-mentiras-de-la-historia-que-nos-tragamos-sin-rechistar-4/ar-BBTeaLx?li=BBpmbhJ&ocid=DELLDHP#page=8|url-status=dead|archive-date=2019-02-07|title=12 mentiras de la historia que nos tragamos sin rechistar (4)|website=MSN|language=es-ES|access-date=2019-02-06}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://elpais.com/cultura/2010/11/03/actualidad/1288738815_850215.html|title=La primera película sonora era española|last=EFE|date=2010-11-03|work=[[El País]]|access-date=2019-02-06|language=es-ES|issn=1134-6582}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=López|first=Alfred|url=https://blogs.20minutos.es/yaestaellistoquetodolosabe/sabias-que-el-cantor-de-jazz-no-fue-realmente-la-primera-pelicula-sonora-de-la-historia-del-cine/|title=¿Sabías que 'El cantor de jazz' no fue realmente la primera película sonora de la historia del cine?|date=2016-04-15|work=[[20 minutos]]|access-date=2020-02-06|language=es-ES}}</ref> Critics attending the event praised the novelty but not the sound quality which received negative reviews in general.<ref>{{cite book|last=Crafton|first=Donald|date=1999|title=The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound, 1926-1931|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KFB_oT-jupQC&q=the+gavotte|location=Berkeley, CA|publisher=University of California Press|page=65|isbn=0-520-22128-1}}</ref> That June, De Forest entered into an extended legal battle with an employee, [[Freeman Harrison Owens]], for title to one of the crucial Phonofilm patents. Although De Forest ultimately won the case in the courts, Owens is today recognized as a central innovator in the field.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|author=Hall, Brenda J.|url=http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=66|title=Freeman Harrison Owens (1890–1979)|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture|date=July 28, 2008|access-date=December 7, 2009}}</ref> The following year, De Forest's studio released the first commercial dramatic film shot as a talking picture—the two-reeler ''Love's Old Sweet Song'', directed by [[J. Searle Dawley]] and featuring [[Una Merkel]].<ref>A few sources indicate that the film was released in 1923, but the two most recent authoritative histories that discuss the film—Crafton (1997), p. 66; Hijiya (1992), p. 103—both give 1924. There are claims that De Forest recorded a synchronized musical score for director [[Fritz Lang]]'s ''[[Die Nibelungen: Siegfried|Siegfried]]'' (1924) when it arrived in the United States the year after its German debut—Geduld (1975), p. 100; Crafton (1997), pp. 66, 564—which would make it the first feature film with synchronized sound throughout. There is no consensus, however, concerning when this recording took place or if the film was ever actually presented with synch-sound. For a possible occasion for such a recording, see the August 24, 1925, [http://movies2.nytimes.com/mem/movies/review.html?title1=Siegfried&title2=&reviewer=MORDAUNT%20HALL.&pdate=19250824&v_id= ''New York Times'' review of ''Siegfried''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160405194333/http://movies2.nytimes.com/mem/movies/review.html?title1=Siegfried&title2=&reviewer=MORDAUNT%20HALL.&pdate=19250824&v_id= |date=April 5, 2016 }}, following its American premiere at New York City's Century Theater the night before, which describes the score's performance by a live orchestra.</ref> However, phonofilm's stock in trade was not original dramas but celebrity documentaries, popular music acts, and comedy performances. President [[Calvin Coolidge]], opera singer [[Abbie Mitchell]], and vaudeville stars such as [[Phil Baker (comedian)|Phil Baker]], [[Ben Bernie]], Eddie Cantor and [[Oscar Levant]] appeared in the firm's pictures. Hollywood remained suspicious, even fearful, of the new technology. As ''[[Photoplay]]'' editor [[James R. Quirk|James Quirk]] put it in March 1924, "Talking pictures are perfected, says Dr. Lee De Forest. ''So'' is [[castor oil]]."<ref>Quoted in Lasky (1989), p. 20.</ref> De Forest's process continued to be used through 1927 in the United States for dozens of short Phonofilms; in the UK it was employed a few years longer for both shorts and features by British Sound Film Productions, a subsidiary of British Talking Pictures, which purchased the primary Phonofilm assets. By the end of 1930, the Phonofilm business would be liquidated.<ref>Low (1997a), p. 203; Low (1997b), p. 183.</ref>

In Europe, others were also working on the development of sound-on-film. In 1919, the same year that DeForest received his first patents in the field, three German inventors, [[Josef Engl]] (1893–1942), [[Hans Vogt (engineer)|Hans Vogt]] (1890–1979), and [[Joseph Massolle]] (1889–1957), patented the [[Tri-Ergon]] sound system. On September 17, 1922, the Tri-Ergon group gave a public screening of sound-on-film productions—including a dramatic talkie, ''Der Brandstifter'' (''The Arsonist'') —before an invited audience at the Alhambra Kino in Berlin.<ref>Robertson (2001), p. 168.</ref> By the end of the decade, Tri-Ergon would be the dominant European sound system. In 1923, two Danish engineers, Axel Petersen and Arnold Poulsen, patented a system that recorded sound on a separate filmstrip running parallel with the image reel. Gaumont licensed the technology and briefly put it to commercial use under the name Cinéphone.<ref>Crisp (1997), pp. 97–98; Crafton (1997), pp. 419–20.</ref>

US competition eclipsed Phonofilm. By September 1925, De Forest and Case's working arrangement had fallen through. The following July, Case joined [[Fox Film]], Hollywood's third largest [[studio system|studio]], to found the Fox-Case Corporation. The system developed by Case and his assistant, Earl Sponable, given the name [[Movietone sound system|Movietone]], thus became the first viable sound-on-film technology controlled by a Hollywood movie studio. The following year, Fox purchased the North American rights to the Tri-Ergon system, though the company found it inferior to Movietone and virtually impossible to integrate the two different systems to advantage.<ref>Sponable (1947), part 4.</ref> In 1927, as well, Fox retained the services of Freeman Owens, who had particular expertise in constructing cameras for synch-sound film.<ref>See [http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=66 Freeman Harrison Owens (1890–1979)], op. cit. A number of sources erroneously state that Owens's and/or the Tri-Ergon patents were essential to the creation of the Fox-Case Movietone system.</ref>

=== Advanced sound-on-disc ===
[[File:The Voice From The Screen (Oct 1926).webm|thumb|The Voice From the Screen (1926), a film demonstrating the [[Vitaphone]] [[sound-on-disc]] process|left]]
Parallel with improvements in sound-on-film technology, a number of companies were making progress with systems that recorded movie sound on phonograph discs. In sound-on-disc technology from the era, a phonograph turntable is connected by a mechanical [[interlock]] to a specially modified [[movie projector|film projector]], allowing for synchronization. In 1921, the [[Photokinema]] sound-on-disc system developed by Orlando Kellum was employed to add synchronized sound sequences to [[D. W. Griffith]]'s failed silent film ''[[Dream Street (film)|Dream Street]]''. A love song, performed by star Ralph Graves, was recorded, as was a sequence of live vocal effects. Apparently, dialogue scenes were also recorded, but the results were unsatisfactory and the film was never publicly screened incorporating them. On May 1, 1921, ''Dream Street'' was re-released, with love song added, at New York City's Town Hall theater, qualifying it—however haphazardly—as the first feature-length film with a live-recorded vocal sequence.<ref>Bradley (1996), p. 4; Gomery (2005), p. 29. Crafton (1997) misleadingly implies that Griffith's film had not previously been exhibited commercially before its sound-enhanced premiere. He also misidentifies Ralph Graves as Richard Grace (p. 58).</ref>  However, the sound quality was very poor and no other theaters could show the sound version of the film as no one had the Photokinema sound system installed.<ref>[[Scott Eyman]], ''The Speed of Sound'' (1997), page 43</ref> On Sunday, May 29, ''Dream Street'' opened at the Shubert Crescent Theater in [[Brooklyn]] with a program of short films made in Phonokinema. However, business was poor, and the program soon closed.

[[File:Don Juan (1926).webm|220px|thumb|right|''[[Don Juan (1926 film)|Don Juan]]'']]
[[File:DonJuanPoster2.jpg|thumb|alt=Illustration of a man dressed in an orange-and-purple Elizabethan costume with puffy shoulders and sheer leggings. Accompanying text provides film credits, dominated by the name of star John Barrymore.|Poster for [[Warner Bros.]]' ''[[Don Juan (1926 film)|Don Juan]]'' (1926), the first major motion picture to premiere with a full-length synchronized [[soundtrack]]. Audio recording engineer [[George Groves (sound engineer)|George Groves]], the first in Hollywood to hold the job, would supervise sound on ''[[Woodstock (film)|Woodstock]]'', 44 years later.]]
In 1925, [[Sam Warner]] of [[Warner Bros.]], then a small Hollywood studio with big ambitions, saw a demonstration of the Western Electric sound-on-disc system and was sufficiently impressed to persuade his brothers to agree to experiment with using this system at New York City's [[Vitagraph Studios]], which they had recently purchased. The tests were convincing to the Warner Brothers, if not to the executives of some other picture companies who witnessed them. Consequently, in April 1926 the Western Electric Company entered into a contract with Warner Brothers and W. J. Rich, a financier, giving them an exclusive license for recording and reproducing sound pictures under the Western Electric system. To exploit this license the Vitaphone Corporation was organized with Samuel L. Warner as its president.<ref name="Crafton 1997, pp. 71–72">Crafton (1997), pp. 71–72.</ref><ref>Historical Development of Sound Films, E.I.Sponable, Journal of the SMPTE Vol. 48 April 1947</ref> [[Vitaphone]], as this system was now called, was publicly introduced on August 6, 1926, with the premiere of ''[[Don Juan (1926 film)|Don Juan]]''; the first feature-length movie to employ a synchronized sound system of any type throughout, its [[soundtrack]] contained a musical [[film score|score]] and added [[sound effects]], but no recorded dialogue—in other words, it had been staged and shot as a silent film. Accompanying ''Don Juan'', however, were eight shorts of musical performances, mostly classical, as well as a four-minute filmed introduction by [[Will H. Hays]], president of the [[Motion Picture Association of America]], all with live-recorded sound. These were the first true sound films exhibited by a Hollywood studio.<ref>The eight musical shorts were ''Caro Nome'', ''An Evening on the Don'', ''La Fiesta'', ''His Pastimes'', ''The Kreutzer Sonata'', ''Mischa Elman'', ''Overture "Tannhäuser"'' and ''Vesti La Giubba''.</ref> Warner Bros.' ''[[The Better 'Ole (1926 film)|The Better 'Ole]]'', technically similar to ''Don Juan'', followed in October.<ref>Crafton (1997), pp. 76–87; Gomery (2005), pp. 38–40.</ref>

Sound-on-film would ultimately win out over sound-on-disc because of a number of fundamental technical advantages:
* Synchronization: no interlock system was completely reliable, and a projectionist's error, or an inexactly repaired film break, or a defect in the soundtrack disc could result in the sound becoming seriously and irrecoverably out of sync with the picture
* Editing: discs could not be directly edited, severely limiting the ability to make alterations in their accompanying films after the original release cut
* Distribution: phonograph discs added expense and complication to film distribution
* Wear and tear: the physical process of playing the discs degraded them, requiring their replacement after approximately twenty screenings<ref>Liebman (2003), p. 398.</ref>

Nonetheless, in the early years, sound-on-disc had the edge over sound-on-film in two substantial ways:
* Production and capital cost: it was generally less expensive to record sound onto disc than onto film and the exhibition systems—turntable/interlock/projector—were cheaper to manufacture than the complex image-and-audio-pattern-reading projectors required by sound-on-film
* Audio quality: phonograph discs, Vitaphone's in particular, had superior [[dynamic range]] to most sound-on-film processes of the day, at least during the first few playings; while sound-on-film tended to have better [[frequency response]], this was outweighed by greater [[distortion]] and [[signal noise|noise]]<ref>{{cite web|author=Schoenherr, Steven E.|url=http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/dynamic.html|title=Dynamic Range|work=Recording Technology History|publisher=History Department at the University of San Diego|date=March 24, 2002|access-date=December 11, 2009|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060905003034/http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/dynamic.html |archive-date = September 5, 2006|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=MPS>{{cite web|author=Schoenherr, Steven E.|url=http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/motionpicture1.html|title=Motion Picture Sound 1910–1929|work=Recording Technology History|publisher=History Department at the University of San Diego|date=October 6, 1999|access-date=December 11, 2009|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070429191100/http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/motionpicture1.html |archive-date = April 29, 2007|url-status=dead}}</ref>

As sound-on-film technology improved, both of these disadvantages were overcome.

The third crucial set of innovations marked a major step forward in both the live recording of sound and its effective playback:
[[File:VitaphoneDemo.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.25|alt=Two suited men stand in a studio with a large film projector and other electrical equipment. The man on the left is holding a large phonograph record.|[[Western Electric]] engineer E. B. Craft, at left, demonstrating the [[Vitaphone]] projection system. A Vitaphone disc had a running time of about 11 minutes, enough to match that of a {{convert|1000|ft|m|adj=on}} reel of 35&nbsp;mm film.]]

=== Fidelity electronic recording and amplification ===
In 1913, [[Western Electric]], the manufacturing division of AT&T, acquired the rights to the [[Lee de Forest|de Forest]] [[audion]], the forerunner of the triode [[vacuum tube]]. Over the next few years they developed it into a predictable and reliable device that made electronic amplification possible for the first time. Western Electric then branched-out into developing uses for the vacuum tube including public address systems and an electrical recording system for the recording industry. Beginning in 1922, the research branch of Western Electric began working intensively on recording technology for both sound-on-disc and sound-on film synchronised sound systems for motion-pictures.

The engineers working on the sound-on-disc system were able to draw on expertise that Western Electric already had in electrical disc recording and were thus able to make faster initial progress. The main change required was to increase the playing time of the disc so that it could match that of a standard {{convert|1000|ft|m|abbr=on}} reel of 35&nbsp;mm film. The chosen design used a disc nearly 16 inches (about 40&nbsp;cm) in diameter rotating at 33&nbsp;1/3 rpm. This could play for 11 minutes, the running time of 1000&nbsp;ft of film at 90&nbsp;ft/min (24 frames/s).<ref>History of Sound Motion Pictures by Edward W. Kellogg, Journal of the SMPTE Vol. 64 June 1955</ref>  Because of the larger diameter the minimum groove velocity of 70&nbsp;ft/min (14 inches or 356&nbsp;mm/s) was only slightly less than that of a standard 10-inch 78 rpm commercial disc.
In 1925, the company publicly introduced a greatly improved system of electronic audio, including sensitive [[Microphone#Condenser microphone|condenser microphones]] and rubber-line recorders (named after the use of a rubber damping band for recording with better frequency response onto a wax master disc<ref>The Bell [http://www.stokowski.org/Development_of_Electrical_Recording.htm "Rubber Line" Recorder] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117073535/http://www.stokowski.org/Development_of_Electrical_Recording.htm |date=January 17, 2013 }}.</ref>). That May, the company licensed entrepreneur Walter J. Rich to exploit the system for commercial motion pictures; he founded Vitagraph, in which Warner Bros. acquired a half interest, just one month later.<ref>Crafton (1997), p. 70.</ref> In April 1926, Warners signed a contract with AT&T for exclusive use of its film sound technology for the redubbed Vitaphone operation, leading to the production of ''Don Juan'' and its accompanying shorts over the following months.<ref name="Crafton 1997, pp. 71–72" /> During the period when Vitaphone had exclusive access to the patents, the fidelity of recordings made for Warners films was markedly superior to those made for the company's sound-on-film competitors. Meanwhile, [[Bell Labs]]—the new name for the AT&T research operation—was working at a furious pace on sophisticated sound amplification technology that would allow recordings to be played back over [[loudspeaker]]s at theater-filling volume. The new moving-coil speaker system was installed in New York's Warners Theatre at the end of July and its patent submission, for what Western Electric called the No. 555 Receiver, was filed on August 4, just two days before the premiere of ''Don Juan''.<ref name=MPS /><ref>{{cite web|author=Schoenherr, Steven E.|url=http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/bell-labs.html|title=Sound Recording Research at Bell Labs|work=Recording Technology History|publisher=History Department at the University of San Diego|date=January 9, 2000|access-date=December 7, 2009|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070522014549/http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/bell-labs.html |archive-date = May 22, 2007|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Late in the year, AT&T/Western Electric created a licensing division, Electrical Research Products Inc. (ERPI), to handle rights to the company's film-related audio technology. Vitaphone still had legal exclusivity, but having lapsed in its royalty payments, effective control of the rights was in ERPI's hands. On December 31, 1926, Warners granted Fox-Case a sublicense for the use of the Western Electric system; in exchange for the sublicense, both Warners and ERPI received a share of Fox's related revenues. The patents of all three concerns were cross-licensed.<ref>Gomery (2005), pp. 42, 50. See also [http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/motionpicture1.html Motion Picture Sound 1910–1929] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080513192557/http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/motionpicture1.html |date=May 13, 2008 }}, perhaps the best online source for details on these developments, though here it fails to note that Fox's original deal for the Western Electric technology involved a sublicensing arrangement.</ref> Superior recording and amplification technology was now available to two Hollywood studios, pursuing two very different methods of sound reproduction. The new year would finally see the emergence of sound cinema as a significant commercial medium.

=== Travel ===
In 1929 a "new [[RCA Photophone]] portable sound and picture reproducing system" was described in the industry journal Projection Engineering.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Danson|first=H. L.|date=September 1929|title=The Portable Model RCA Photophone|url=https://archive.org/details/projectionengine01brya/page/n161/mode/2up?q=portable|journal=Projection Engineering|publisher=Bryan Davis Publishing Co., inc.|volume=November 1929|pages=32|access-date=6 August 2021|via=InternetArchive}}</ref>  In Australia, [[Hoyts]] and Gilby Talkies Pty., Ltd were touring talking pictures to country towns.<ref>{{cite news|date=8 August 1929|title=LOCAL & GENERAL|volume=I|page=2|newspaper=[[Geraldton Guardian and Express]]|issue=170|location=Western Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article67100728|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=6 August 2021}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Smith|first=Nathan|title=TOURING SOUND EQUIPMENT TO REGIONAL AREAS|url=https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/hoyts-1920s-talking-pictures-roadshow|access-date=6 August 2021|website=National Film and Sound Archive of Australia|date=April 2020}}</ref> The same year the White Star Line installed talking picture equipment on the s.s. Majestic.  The features shown on the first voyage were ''[[Show Boat (1929 film)|Show Boat]]'' and ''[[Broadway (1929 film)|Broadway]].''<ref>{{cite news|date=30 August 1929|title=TALKIES AT SEA|volume=XLVIII|page=10 (HOME FINAL EDITION)|newspaper=[[Daily News (Perth, Western Australia)|The Daily News]]|issue=16,950|location=Western Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article79212925|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=6 August 2021}}</ref>